Global T20 Canada

For discussion of all aspects of Canadian cricket
mautan
Posts: 94
Joined: Wed Jun 20, 2018 3:22 pm

Re: Global T20 Canada

Post by mautan » Sat Jul 07, 2018 11:18 am

LeScotsman wrote:
Fri Jul 06, 2018 10:54 am
The world has moved on lightyears in 10 years. Ten years ago, televised cricket was much harder to find in North America, or even on the internet. The IPL was a baby. The whole world wasn't glued to screens in the palms of their hands every minute. To understand what's going on, it's important to understand human behaviour. 99% of people will always take the laziest, cheapest route. It's very difficult nowadays to get people to to reply to direct messages (text, voicemail, FB) or even open emails, let alone read them and take action. When people can stream live cricket on their phones for free on the toilet or in their car, or from their sofa without paying, and tune in and out while they potter around doing other things, like looking after the kids, why would they choose to spend 40$-150$ a head and lose 8 hours of their day, driving to a bleacher in the sun or anywhere else, taking more than 50 steps of action along the way? Ten years ago, there was not a large enough market to successfully stage a pro event here. Now, even less so. With screens and non-stop distraction everywhere, if you make an offer to people, their brains make a quick calculation, ''Do I have to make effort for this?'' If yes, most people choose not to. This is why it is tumbling.

Cricket has always been hard here or anywhere. In North America, it has always been a shambles and followed the very opposite path to proper development. Stumbling around now trying to make a success of it while competing for attention with youtube is very difficult. Cricket here is not in a battle to grow any more as it was 10 years ago (a battle it lost, sadly). It’s in a battle to survive.

There is no other pastime that takes so much time and effort. So much has to go into it to making one game work. Miss or slack on one important detail, and it fails. Below are just a few examples of the key pieces in staging one recreational match - hugely different from a professional tournament but I use it as an example for cricket in general. In terms of creating a successful overall system or event, there are many more requirements, too long to list here.

To play a match, you need a huge space - 4 acres of flat grassed land, with people who properly understand and can carry out good ground maintenance in order to make play safe and productive. It's a full-time job, with years of training required. There are probably only 5 people in the country who understand that. Do they have the time and money? Will they in the future? You can't play hockey in 6 inches of snow. Can you play cricket in 6 inches of grass? Will it ever work in municipal parks where they have regulations about not cutting the grass? No. Will it continue to get use of substandard municipal land in the midst of demand from every other, easier sport? No. If cricket is to survive, it needs to find a solution to that. It will only have a chance of survival on private land.

Every match requires people who can score. I've played and organised cricket and other sports for more than 30 years, in all that time, in every cricket game, 80-90% of people say they don't know how to score. Even the guys who’ve played for 50 years. Every match, it's a dog's breakfast. Teams lose games all the time that they actually won because people can't count or pay attention, or understand the system. It’s not uncommon for scorebooks to have 40 runs out of place over 500 balls. The scorer can blink (or their phones vibrate now) and you lose the game. It's so much goddamn work and confusion. People say, just use an app. Again, most people don't know how to work the thing, and they can't spot or correct mistakes on a screen as they can on paper. The battery runs out of power, etc. Is people's behaviour and knowledge towards that going to change? No. Does this complication appeal to people, or drive them away? Or is it the system that needs to change? The ICC, MCC, or any cricket board has never bothered to even put a YouTube video up explaining how scoring works. How are people supposed to do it?

Every match requires qualified, unbiased umpires without eyesight problems or hearing issues who've watched thousands of hours of televised cricket, who volunteer to stand in the sun for 8 hours having people complain to them. Or the game fails, people get pissed off. Are people rushing out to volunteer for this? Are kids super keen to learn? Would you say there are more people now who know how to do the job than 10 years ago, or less? Are people going to want to do that in 10 years? It needs an affordable technological solution. It's too much work and too problematic.

You need a meal because you're stuck in the middle of nowhere for the best part of a day. Who wants to spend their Friday nights and Saturday mornings preparing that now? People can't be bothered to boil an egg now.

Between groundstaff, umpires, scorers, and caterer (before you get to coach, captain, players and coordinators) that’s 6 people who really know what they are doing and are willing to dedicate huge amounts of their time in order to succeed (park cricket on uncut pastures with no food, shade or bathrooms, and players doing a horrible job of umpiring and scoring is not a successful system). Where do you get those people? When 99% of people won’t lift a finger? When trends are showing fewer and fewer volunteers?

Cricket matches need so much time. On weekends. Parents are working 50 hours a week to pay off their credit cards for all their digital luxuries, and weekends are family time. In 10 years, are there going to be more people volunteering to give up their weekends, or less? If cricket wants to survive, club cricket has to find a way to develop on weeknights under floodlights. It has to find ways of speeding up without compromising the volume of play for everyone. Two to four hours of every cricket game is simply time wasting. Thirty seconds delay times ten times a day times 22 players is a lot of nothing. In 10 years, are people still going to choose to waste that time?

It's the law of the jungle, adapt or die. The fanciful ideas of IPL style franchises in North America are a total waste of time and resources without any sound business foundation or evidence of success. When I see the waste of millions on this, and then I look at all the clubs in the country that don't even have a lawnmower. Why would kids and 99% of the population want to play cricket when they can't hit the ball more than 3 metres in unrolled cow pastures? When that's your starting point...

As much as I Iove the game, as much as I've put into development, in mainstream and expat cricket, in youth and senior cricket, on a voluntary and professional basis, in Canada and elsewhere, I look at the stats, I look at people's behaviour, I look at the technology and the competition, I look at the history, I ask myself, will the North American cricket system change, or will it change other people?
Excellent summary!

ray
Posts: 720
Joined: Mon Feb 19, 2018 8:46 am
Location: Canada

Re: Global T20 Canada

Post by ray » Sun Jul 08, 2018 2:48 pm

LeScotsman wrote:
Fri Jul 06, 2018 10:54 am
The world has moved on lightyears in 10 years. Ten years ago, televised cricket was much harder to find in North America, or even on the internet. The IPL was a baby. The whole world wasn't glued to screens in the palms of their hands every minute. To understand what's going on, it's important to understand human behaviour. 99% of people will always take the laziest, cheapest route. It's very difficult nowadays to get people to to reply to direct messages (text, voicemail, FB) or even open emails, let alone read them and take action. When people can stream live cricket on their phones for free on the toilet or in their car, or from their sofa without paying, and tune in and out while they potter around doing other things, like looking after the kids, why would they choose to spend 40$-150$ a head and lose 8 hours of their day, driving to a bleacher in the sun or anywhere else, taking more than 50 steps of action along the way? Ten years ago, there was not a large enough market to successfully stage a pro event here. Now, even less so. With screens and non-stop distraction everywhere, if you make an offer to people, their brains make a quick calculation, ''Do I have to make effort for this?'' If yes, most people choose not to. This is why it is tumbling.

...
Thanks. An enlightening and unfortunately, accurate portrayal of Canadian cricket's challenges for survival despite the large playing numbers.

ray
Posts: 720
Joined: Mon Feb 19, 2018 8:46 am
Location: Canada

Re: Global T20 Canada

Post by ray » Mon Jul 09, 2018 7:04 am

The National and Tigers delivered a thrilling contest yesterday, worthy of the Toronto-Montreal rivalry :D. Too bad so few were in attendance.
On the broadcast I think it was mentioned there were "owners" for the teams and both teams had corporate logos on their uniforms.

I don't think lack of promotion can be blamed for the poor attendance. The tournament has been going for a week-an-a-half and the crowds haven't grown much.

Edit: Oh, forgot to mention Nitish Kumar, man of the match for his vital 46.

timmyj51
Posts: 335
Joined: Fri Jun 29, 2018 5:23 pm

Re: Global T20 Canada

Post by timmyj51 » Mon Jul 09, 2018 12:08 pm

Has (or will) Mercuri release official attendance figures?

ray
Posts: 720
Joined: Mon Feb 19, 2018 8:46 am
Location: Canada

Re: Global T20 Canada

Post by ray » Wed Jul 11, 2018 7:50 am

Interview with Ashit Patel, director of Mercuri Canada.
https://www.facebook.com/SportsTrendsCa ... 376044505/

Sounds as though Mercuri has plans to eventually expand the tournament out of GTA (venues in Vancouver, NY mentioned). They sound committed to next year at the very least.

timmyj51
Posts: 335
Joined: Fri Jun 29, 2018 5:23 pm

Re: Global T20 Canada

Post by timmyj51 » Wed Jul 11, 2018 12:11 pm

Few takeaways from that interview (tourney's almost over and we finally get to
actually hear from an organizer!):

1) Now clear this thing's directed at the North American expat market.
No cricket venture in North America can be commercially viable if it ignores
the mainstream populace. Like every other cricket venture, seems Mercuri
will have to learn the hard way.

2) Said some Canadian players realized how poor their training was compared to
the pros. CC take note.

3) He mentioned New York. If Mercuri is planning on heading south gonna run into
even tougher obstacles; i.e. grounds, saturated cricket market for expats, etc.

mautan
Posts: 94
Joined: Wed Jun 20, 2018 3:22 pm

Re: Global T20 Canada

Post by mautan » Wed Jul 11, 2018 12:30 pm

timmyj51 wrote:
Mon Jul 09, 2018 12:08 pm
Has (or will) Mercuri release official attendance figures?
Would not be interested in any negative things timmyj..me personally would not be interested because I have aeen the attendance on tv and it must be very low. Did you not see the telecast? If yes..what do you gain from 'official numbers'.
Kudos to them for 'trying'..and putting on a decent show. Success and failure does not always depend on efforts put in.

ds12345
Posts: 2
Joined: Thu Jul 12, 2018 9:39 am

Re: Global T20 Canada

Post by ds12345 » Thu Jul 12, 2018 9:43 am

I starting following the league but soon lost interest.

Looks like the league was never meant to encourage and promote Canadian Cricketers, apart from Nikil Dutta and couple others no one else shinned.

I was shocked to not see the likes of Rizwan Cheema, Cecil Pervaz and others get fair opportunity.

I wish the league setup was like IPL wherein you can only play 4 overseas players and rest local.


Disappointed!!!!

Victorian
Posts: 598
Joined: Mon Feb 19, 2018 12:33 pm

Re: Global T20 Canada

Post by Victorian » Thu Jul 12, 2018 12:15 pm

ds12345 wrote:
Thu Jul 12, 2018 9:43 am
I starting following the league but soon lost interest.

Looks like the league was never meant to encourage and promote Canadian Cricketers, apart from Nikil Dutta and couple others no one else shinned.

I was shocked to not see the likes of Rizwan Cheema, Cecil Pervaz and others get fair opportunity.

I wish the league setup was like IPL wherein you can only play 4 overseas players and rest local.


Disappointed!!!!
I also wish there were many more Canadians playing (Hamza Tariq?). I wish there was a national 1st class competition (what?!) When the National Cricket League was held, which had lots of representation from all regions of the country, it was categorized as a senior men's competition - In other words it was of a much lower standard. Also, no one went to see it. CC did stream some of it one year.

ray
Posts: 720
Joined: Mon Feb 19, 2018 8:46 am
Location: Canada

Re: Global T20 Canada

Post by ray » Thu Jul 12, 2018 12:29 pm

^^ I think increases to the required number of Canadians over time was mentioned in articles I've seen and the interview with Ashit Patel. The inaugural year gave the Canadians exposure to professional cricket by being around top pros and practicing with them. Future tournaments will give more of them a chance to play. The caveat is the tournament has to survive long enough for the increased Canadian playing time to be realized.

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